The present disclosure is directed to a telephone calling card and in particular to a telephone calling card that has an enhanced set of features. A large portion of the public now uses telephone calling cards. The popularity of the telephone calling card in part relates to the convenience of calling so that the person possessing the calling card can make calls at any telephone in the vicinity where they work or live. Most telephone subscriber systems operate on the basis that a call is placed from a residence or business phone only by the owner, and strangers do not have the right to run up telephone bills on that telephone subscriber. This apparatus accommodates that kind of problem. Thus, a person can carry this telephone calling card with them and make calls from pay phones, phones at other locations, and utilize the telephone calling card for their transmission. That is an important sense of freedom and liberty for the user. Moreover, telephone calling cards find greatest value for a more mobile society as we have now achieved.
Telephone calling cards are now often used as envelope stuffers and token enticements to attract attention. For instance, telephone calling cards are placed in an envelope with advertising to prompt a person to make an inquiry regarding a particular product. It is not uncommon to do this especially with a view of attracting business to the distributor of the calling cards. Such telephone calling cards typically have a small charge on them, and by that, the term "charge" does not refer to cost but refers primarily to the time available. Such a typical card will be charged to the extent of ten minutes, twenty minutes or much more LD time in the Continental U.S. Such cards can be set up so that they exclude certain area codes and include others. For that matter, telephone calling cards can be set up so that they include certain country codes and exclude other country codes. For instance, it is possible to set up a telephone calling card which includes all of Canada and Alaska, but excludes other countries. On the other hand, a telephone calling card can be established which permits calling to Western Europe, but no where else. Another example is a telephone calling card which can call only inside the lower forty-eight states.
The present disclosure is directed to a telephone calling card which is a business card having a personal name, address and phone number on the face. Such cards may include a job title and name of the business also. Most business cards are printed in bulk, distributed and soon forgotten. For the person who actually gets and keeps a business card it will be used one or two, perhaps three times and then be lost in the stack with other business cards or shuffled to a bottom of a deck of similar cards. Loose, unsorted, randomly organized stacks of business cards are not terribly beneficial; a business card which is copied onto a Roladex (card index) might be slightly more useful, but not every business card recipient is that organized. The present disclosure sets out a business card which includes the printed instructions for a telephone calling card on the back. This procedure enables a business person such as a salesman (selling for example new cars, real estate and so on) to hand out their business card and to assure that it is evaluated as a business card and that there is some memory retention in the mind of the recipient. By incorporating in the business card the described features of a telephone calling card, the business card then is promoted to the head of the deck so to speak, surpassing the significance of other cards in the stack.
The business card of the present disclosure has that benefit. Moreover, the business card of the present disclosure encourages the recipient to look keenly for the business card every time a call is made. More will be noted concerning that in the description below. The recipient of this business card has good cause to keep the card handy and in close view. By appropriate reading of the telephone calling card, long distance calls are authorized at a time, in a place, in choosing of the business card publisher. That is, the business advertised on the card has every reason to continue to distribute this card and look for favorable impressions with the recipient. This will be explained in detail below. This however involves the interplay or memory retention of the business name on the face of the card which recollection is enhanced each time it is handled. If the card is handled only once, the recipient of the card may, but probably will not, remember the name of the business on the card. If handled two or three times, the memory reinforcement is built up. If handled five to ten times, the probability of recollection of that business name will be increased to about 100% for practically ever recipient. In commercial circumstances, this means that the recipient will (with repetition) build up a recollection with a fond and favorable outlook on the business identified with the calling card. So to speak, a single calling card handled only once gets lost in the multitude of other calling cards which are pushed on every person receiving business cards. This repetition changes the image and builds reinforcement. This repetition enhances the ability of the business card recipient to remember that particular name and to identify that particular name. Consider this typical example. A business card is handed out, listing on the face of the business card some sort of name and address information. Often, the product or the nature of the services provided by the card publisher will be included. Those services or products may not be needed by the recipient that day, but perhaps later. For instance, when someone has a business card for a medical doctor, they may not need medical services because they are well and feeling good. The time will come when they do not feel well. If they do not already have a connection with a medical practitioner, the name on the card will then be recalled, and that professional service provider will then come to the front of their mind. Obviously, when medical services are needed, other service providers and product vendors will be momentarily pushed aside in the mind of the person needing medical services. The fact that medical services are needed will take paramount ascendancy over other needs of the moment. On another day, however, when the person is feeling better and medical services are not required, they may then determine that they need car repair services, purchase automotive tires and so on. Any number of other goods and services will then come to mind. It is in this kind of chaotic recollection of provider names (of a great variety of goods and services) that the business card recipient will think now and then of those service providers and seek them out.
The person who provides the business card in accordance with the present disclosure stands a much greater chance of being called. In other words, the business card which they hand out will have greater retention, and build a more easily recalled image in the mind of the recipient. The name will be more easily recalled because it has become distinguished from the crowd by comparable service providers. The person will be more aptly important to the affairs and circumstances of the moment to the recipient. Examples will be given below which illustrate how this occurs. Moreover, these examples will help build a clear and careful representation of how the present invention is effective to convert a very ordinary business card into a standout presentation to the recipient, one which is memorable and remembered.
There is the risk that the business card of the present disclosure can become an excessively expensive financial drain. The present disclosure sets forth a method and apparatus by which the business card of the present disclosure is not excessively costly. Consider the following example. Assume that the business card is given to a recipient. The recipient is provided with a 800 toll free line to call to thereby start placing telephone calls. The calling card feature is implemented by calling the 800 toll free number and then inputting a personal identification number (PIN). Unbeknown to the business card recipient, when the PIN is input, procedures are set into effect which benefit the recipient but which also enable the recipient to be tagged or prompted either directly over the telephone line or by means of a follow-up contact from the distributor of the business card. Examples of this will be give below. In one aspect, the calling card can be recharged periodically. By periodically charging the card, the recipient will take advantage of that to place calls, and each occasion, by appropriate spacing, can then be an occasion at which the recipient is given greater emphasis and greater encouragement to remember and view favorably the person who provided the business card to them.
In one aspect to the present disclosure, it cooperates with a LD switch connected with a computer. The computer stores an input account number associated with the PIN of the card holder, and that PIN account is accessed from use to use. With each use, the time remaining on the card is decremented until it reaches some minimal value or zero as the case may be. Moreover, it can be charged and recharged periodically. This enables the gift of a free LD call to the recipient, and the timing, spacing, and duration of that call can be tailored so that the calling party will take abundant notice of the sources of the gift. As will be detailed, the business card account associated with the LD switch can be periodically incremented to provide seasonal input of added time. This can be done as it were at the wholesale level so that the business card publisher will be able to obtain a large block of available time, but can obtain that at the lowest possible cost, loosely speaking, a cost which will be deemed a wholesale cost. In another aspect, the PIN can be used as a trigger to prompt a personally recorded message to the PIN user so that they are told some news that will prompt them to call again in the future. That contributes to the reinforcement and that will be exemplified in some detail below.